


but at least the war is over

by lanyon



Category: Captain America, Marvel 616, The Avengers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:08:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier is not the Red Room’s greatest creation. He cannot be while the Black Widow lives. He can be hers, though. He can be her greatest achievement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but at least the war is over

**Author's Note:**

> + **Warnings** for the obvious implications of **non-con** where brainwashed assassins are concerned (this is not Bucky Barnes) and for mentions of extreme violence. This is not intended to be a romance.  
>  +Title, rather obviously, from _In Our Bedroom After The War_.

_Have you heard of sleeping dictionaries?_ they ask her, for all that they disdain British colonialism and English public schoolboys who fancy themselves Communists. _Locals,_ they say. _**Natives**_ , they spit, _who fuck expatriates and teach them the local language. We have one_ , they say. _For you. He is an American, called James._

 _Джеймс_ , she says, carefully. _I don’t want-_

 _You’re not a virgin_ , they say. _This is a mission, Widow. This isn’t love._

.

She has heard of the Winter Soldier before. Until now, she was certain that he was a myth, created to frighten new recruits. 

_You are stronger than him_ , they tell her. _Do not break him._

 _You are older than him_ , they say. _Train him well._

She doesn’t understand. He looks older than her. He is broad and his shoulders are wide, even if one is metal and cold. He sweats in the training facility and his chest glistens. His lips part and he laughs. The sound is strange. No one laughs here. He is American, though. That is what they say. He is handsome, too. 

She is stronger. She is older. She stretches where he can see her and the way her back arches and the way that it is no matter to stand en pointe for a full minute. They once told her that she was a ballerina. She would have liked that. 

They tell her that she must win him. That this is a game, this seduction, and that she must catch his eye. She must earn him. 

She resists the urge to fly at them and spit in their faces. The Black Widow does not _win_ men. If this is a game, then he is little more than a plaything. 

She learns that he kisses like a teenage boy. She runs her fingers over his stubbled chin and whispers to him to slow down. She kisses his lower lip and he goes still. He might be frightened. He’s trembling now and she whispers, _sshhh, James_ , and they kiss. They kiss for hours until he knows how. 

“Am I your first woman?” she asks. 

He blushes and shakes his head. “It’s - it’s been a while,” he says. “There was a-” He frowns and whispers. “Blackbird.” His face clears. “In the war.” 

“The war is over,” she says. She reaches into his trousers and she is gratified when he whimpers and buries his face against her neck. 

He tells her of his childhood. He was born in Brooklyn, he says. His parents moved to Stalingrad when he was a teenager. She sees no reason not to believe him; he trusts her, he says. She smiles in the dark.

“How did you lose your arm?” she asks, one night.

“In the war,” he says, sleepily. 

Everything happened in the war. 

He likes it when she rides him. She likes it when his hands grip her thighs, hard enough to leave bruises like fingerprints. 

The first time she lowers herself onto him, his eyes open wide and he bites his lip. 

He is so very sorry but she doesn’t care. The Winter Soldier is not the Red Room’s greatest creation. He cannot be while the Black Widow lives. He can be hers, though. He can be her greatest achievement. 

The Winter Soldier is fierce in the training ring. Everyone is afraid of him. She remembers what she is told. _Learn from him._

There is no hesitation when he spars. There are no shy smiles and gentle touches. She misses them. She tells herself that she does not miss them. She watches with the other recruits. She wonders if they ever told him that he was a ballet dancer. He moves with unforeseen grace. He is unpredictable and savage. They say that there is an entire ward filled with his victims. An entire ward filled with the sound of their pain and the agony of broken bones. The worst, they say, are the ones who cannot cry because he has crushed their voiceboxes or ripped out their tongues.

She wishes she could say that she does not believe them but she has felt the strength in his thighs. He has wrapped his hand around her throat and she has dared him, with dancing, dark eyes, and he has laughed as she has thrown him back into the sheets. 

“Tell me about New York,” she says. “Tell me about America.”

He is inclined to lapse into Russian. She pinches his side and reminds him that she needs to learn English and he laughs. 

He still laughs. 

He surprises her in the shower one day. He lifts her up and the cold of his fingers inside her makes her muscles clench and she moans with pleasure. He surprises her more often. He learns fast.

He goes down on her and spells her name against her clitoris. He gets to ш and she is squirming. Oh. _Oh._

“You cannot love me,” she says, pulling him up. 

“I do,” he says, his hair falling down over his eyes and he is so handsome and earnest that her heart squirms. 

“They won’t allow it,” she says. 

“Why do you bring them in here?” he demands. He is angry. She leans down and kisses him. 

“Because they are always here,” she says. She taps his temple. (She does not know how right she is.)

He kisses back. He kisses like a man, now, and this bed is their battlefield. She lets him pin her down and she parts her legs and guides him inside her. This is their truce. 

“Do you love me?” he asks, afterwards, his fingers inside her, moving idly. She bears down on them and moans. 

“Yes,” she says. “ _Yes_.” 

He smiles, sunshine breaking over his face. “Let’s run away together,” he says.

“We can’t,” she says, gasping. “We _can’t_.”

She knows that they gave him to her. _This is a mission_ , they say. 

When she tells her superiors of the Winter Soldier’s restlessness, she is rewarded with praise. Her loyalty will not go unnoticed. She expects that he’ll be punished. Beaten, perhaps. She expects that, tonight, she will go to his room and dress his wounds and explain to him that love is not for the likes of them. 

The Winter Soldier is deactivated within hours. He is returned to stasis. _[Mission Honeypot] has been successful,_ they tell her. 

She asks who he was, this lost little boy. 

_A casualty of war_ , they tell her. _A great asset_ , they say.

She tells them that they are lucky to have him. It is what they want to hear. She is out of sight before her guts heave and her stomach contents splatter the floor.

It is the last time she will show such weakness.


End file.
